Delicate
by i love alex
Summary: He could tell you everything about her.


A/N: Don't even get me started on how long it has been.

* * *

He could tell you everything about her. How the smile for when she's nervous is different to the smile for when she's overwhelmed. Her favorite time of day: the sun bleeding somewhere into night. Her favorite smell: lavender, pine and firewood right before it's burnt. That she makes perfect French toast but hates eating it. That she loves bubble baths but hates soap. He can tell you what it feels like when she hugs, different to the way she can also hold.

He can tell you everything.

How it felt when he was gone. How long she cried, if she cried. How she looked. The way she fell in love with his brother, watched his brother. Needed him.

Everything he can tell you. Everything but that.

"Elena." Stefan whispers and he feels the grip strengthen on his arm; she wasn't ready to move yet but they weren't the only two people left in the school. The vulnerability of the two of them standing out in the open was increasing by the second.

"Come on, I'll take you home." He moves his hands off her shoulders to the small of her back and she lifts her head, her face a mess but nods and wordlessly takes his hand again. Her hand feels illogically small to him and he already hates the thought of letting it go.

When they reach the parking lot, he takes the keys and starts the car as she slumps against the passenger window, closing her eyes. She doesn't fall asleep the entire drive to her house but her breathing slows and she's calmer than she had been minutes ago.

"Come in." She orders as she slips out of the car towards her porch and he's still sitting there, staring up at the house, thinking of her bedroom. He wonders if it's still the same; if her bear was there, if she still slept on the left even though whenever he stayed over, she'd shuffle over to the right.

"Stefan." He hears and almost jumps at the sound, looking over at her; she's got his car door open, an impatient frown on her face, like this isn't weird and he shouldn't be making it and really, it isn't. He's been in her house a hundred times; has slept in her bed, has showered with her in her shower, has eaten and read and lived in her house. All a hundred times before, so no, this shouldn't feel weird.

But somehow, through falling back into the steps of a pattern he remembers so easily, a pattern he had tried so hard to forget, trying to forget her, it feels a little off.

He follows her up the upstairs, falling a few steps behind, noting the dried blood on her hand; the cut is deep, she should get stiches but he knows if he brought it up, she'd only shrug it off. Her father had been a doctor and she knew, almost to an annoyingly contentious degree what required stiches and what didn't. He wonders if her father had ever taught her the way you cleaned up a cut, if he had ever shown her the correct way to dress one.

He wonders almost sadly, as he watches her now walk into her room and turn on the light, why he had never asked her that before.

She pulls down her hair; it's ratty, has about a million knots she knows, can tell just by looking at it and looks over her shoulder towards her bathroom. She needs a shower but she swallows, looking away, noticing the way he was hovering by her door.

"You can come in."

He smiles like she's kidding and shakes his head, which she reply's to by only rolling her eyes.

"Stefan." She starts softly, tired and weary and begins to pull at the bobby pins threaded throughout her hair, "Come in."

He practically tiptoes. It takes all the time that she pulls at her hair, finally loosening it down for him to make his way over to her bed and sit down at the edge of it like the entire place will set ablaze if he so much as makes the wrong move which she thinks is ridiculous considering the various positions he's put her in on that bed.

She immediately blushes thinking about it, surprised by how quickly her mind had gone to those memories and masks it by ducking her head and fiddling at the back of her dress. It's stuck and she could, but doesn't, laugh at how set up this all seemed.

"Help." She sighs when she's twisted and pulled at it without it so much as budging and drops her hands but he's already off the bed and she thinks he's just glad that there's something for him to finally do. Something to take away the awkwardness of him just sitting there, watching the floor, and trying not to watch her.

She watches his reflection in the mirror; his fingers catch on her back, missing the zipper and the breath in her throat catches and he's suddenly looking at her reflection too. She's afraid to swallow, afraid to blink, afraid that he'll stop or go. She's desperately afraid and sad and tired and lonely; so completely lonely.

She wants to tell him that she's missed him. That she feels so sad that crying doesn't feel like enough. That she's just tired. Tired of having to do this and live through this, that she hasn't done enough. Could've done more.

"Elena." He's whispering and it's there, it's there so effortlessly like she's said it all. Elena, he whispers and his fingers on her skin make circles and hold her completely even though he's barely got three fingers on her body. It'll never sound the same as it does coming from him, her name, she thinks. And then he's turning her against her dresser, cupping one hand to her face and she's feeling like this thread that used to connect the two of them together like a single stitch, is unthreading.

"We made out." She starts, hating herself in a way that she doesn't really understand but feels so wholeheartedly it feels like thick acid against her teeth, "Me and Damon made out, I kissed him and I don't know what would've happened if I…if we…I kissed him and it got….I couldn't…."

He shakes his head, leans it so close towards her that she thinks he's going to rest it against her chest but doesn't and instead, kisses what skin is exposed there. She lets out a soft, smothered gasp, one she's too afraid to fully release. One she knows she's going to breathe out inevitably again, louder and fuller and complete, sounding and feeling and loving him.

He kisses her again and then again, quick and wet kisses that should last longer but don't.

"I'm telling you." She says and he kisses her again; Elena lets out a small moan and tilts her head back right back, wanting to spread wider, thinking she'd snap right in two if she so much as tried.

"Do you think we've found one another again?" He asks against her skin, so quietly she can barely make out the words and he moves his head to look at her with eyes that are filled with a desperate want and need that's so suffocating, so freeing that she doesn't say anything but kisses him, full and flush, grabbing his face to hers instead. He pushes her against the drawers and the dresser rattles, things fall off and he grabs at her legs and her waist, lifting her up, getting her closer.

"_Elena_." Her name comes out like a string; a seamless, single moan.

She breaks away, bursting out into a breath as he goes to her neck and her chin, moving to her cheek and the side of her face, against her ear he's kissing, sliding and whispering; her dress is hiked up past her knees and his buckle is lose and undone, they're both undone and panting and desperate and ready for something that feels too soon but not enough. That feels not right but they do naturally, moving to touch and undo one another blindly, without needing to look and find the path.

He's drawn so many lines against her body, she's sure that if you looked hard enough, you could see the traces. She's sure he knows those lines, has memorized them back to front, left to right, so he can go back to them and trace them all over; the importance of them, the importance to him. Her freckles and toes and the skin on the back of her neck, his tongue finding and tracing and loving them.

"Stefan." She tries and it gets stuck in her throat.

He kisses, so softly, the shallow spot below her ear and leans there, panting and waiting, not wanting to move. Not wanting to ever leave her; sure if he did, their shadows would weave and follow anyway.

"I'm sorry." He whispers and she has no idea what for, moves, just barely, so that her feet were back on the ground; she's pressed against his crotch, can feel him even through his pants and it makes her so dizzy, she's afraid she'll pass out.

She turns her face just to kiss again and misses, kissing the tip of his nose but it somehow tastes even sweeter.

"Let me shower." She says faintly like he'll really just stay in this room and she'll leave him for the other. He nods and steps back, reaching instinctively for her hand; it seems impossible not to, after holding it so often now.

She leads him to the bathroom where she peals her dress of and then her underwear, helping him with his clothes and they leave a messy pile on the floor. They shower without speaking, naked and quiet but he helps with her hair and she holds him as the waters going cold and she swears it's the most intimate thing she's ever done in her entire life. The most, it feels so fragile, familiar.

They don't have sex but he sleeps next to her, the pair of them still wet from the shower and exhausted from the day and she's crying a little because she can't stop and he wants to hold her hand or her but doesn't.

He hums instead; a slow, sad song that somehow keeps her from curling up completely and him from beginning to.

She moves a lot during the night; she's up and down, to get water, to change because it's hot, to walk into her brothers room and he watches her do these things without saying a word, hearing the slowing down of her heart, knowing she would tire herself out eventually, hoping it would be soon. Lying there still and silent for hours, waiting for her to get up again. Waiting for her to come back.

When she doesn't one last time, he finds her an hour later, curled in a ball at the foot of Alaric's bed.

"He should be buried beside Jenna." She says numbly and he nods even though he knows that they'll probably be a designated place Alaric has confirmed to be put in his will. But knowing him, he wouldn't mind, would probably prefer it.

"We'll make sure that's where he goes." He tells her and tucks hair behind her ear; they sit there for a couple minutes more until he hears it finally, the quietness of her breathing and leans down to press a kiss to her temple.

He takes her to her own bed, tucks her in and sits in the chair at the foot of it trying to sleep himself but knowing it was pointless. The only thing on his mind, as he stares and watches her, is his brother. And for some reason, the feeling is an ache more than anger. He can feel his brother's sadness over losing his friend so tenaciously, it's debilitating and he can only sit there, exhausted.

Watching her, seeing Damon.

* * *

The morning is busy and they're never alone until late in the afternoon. He finds her washing a mug over the sink and just leans for a moment, against the doorway, thinking not of words to say but of things he could do. She hadn't cried when they found out Alaric had completed the transition but she also hadn't said anything and he knows, better than anyone, that her silence was worse.

"I'm fine, you know, you don't have to watch over me."

He immediately pushes himself off the wall and walks for the island in the middle of the kitchen instead, pulling up a chair.

"I know." He says softly and continues to watch her and Elena sighs, dropping the mug into the soapy water and pulling her hands up to rest against the sink.

"He won't take me if he knows it means you'd both follow. He has a plan, it won't be so easy."

Klaus had come by earlier in the day with a gentle reminder that he still had plans to take Elena and leave town for good. It had scared the shit out of him, out of both he and Damon, more than he let on though considering today and the way he hasn't let her be alone for so much as a second, he thinks she probably knows.

"It doesn't matter, he could take you Elena, and you'd be gone in a minute, maybe less. There'd be no way to trace you, even with Bonnie."

Elena picks up the mug again, biting her tongue against the tears in her throat.

"He won't take me." She repeats and he nods even though he knows she hadn't said it for him.

"Damon and I, everyone here, won't let him."

They wouldn't stand a chance; if Klaus really wanted her, he could take her within seconds, not minutes and Stefan shuts his eyes against the idea of it. Her hands, now dry, touch against his shoulder and it's an immediate calmness.

"I'm not worried."

He turns against her, leaning against her stomach and her hands find their way around his neck; it's reminiscent of a way they'd meet, long ago.

"And why is that?" He asks her gently, mindlessly rubbing light, loose circles against her back.

Elena props her chin on his shoulder, giving him a small squeeze before releasing him and turning back to the sink.

"Because I know that even if he did take me and I was lost, you'd still find me."

He doesn't know quite what to say to that; it's true. But it's true for both of them, for he and Damon. He wonders if she knows it too. Wonders if it's why she told him with her back turned.

"I would." He agrees softly even though to him it sounds more like a promise and continues watching her, hearing the constant beat of her heart, "I would."

* * *

A/N: I'm gonna leave this one open to give me a chance to add more to it such as things happening in the ep this week or perhaps even a finale chapter. Thanks guys!


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